Entering free agency, there was plenty of buzz surrounding the idea that the Detroit Pistons could be set to lose restricted free agent Jalen Duren.

The gap in contract negotiations sent Duren and his camp into free agency, looking to not only prove Detroit wrong about his market value but find a team that would ink him to the massive payday he’s searching for, even if it meant landing on a rebuilding team like the Sacramento Kings.

Between Sacramento’s interest, the Los Angeles Lakers’ flirting with an all-out pursuit for the 22-year-old star, and Duren’s intrigue with landing on the Boston Celtics, it felt like the Pistons didn’t have the leverage they were hoping for, even with Detroit signaling they’d match any offer sheet.

However, the Lakers have landed Walker Kessler, the Celtics have signed Mitchell Robinson and offloaded Jaylen Brown, and the Kings aren’t even a real consideration without Detroit willing to facilitate a sign-and-trade.

The silence from Duren’s camp over the last couple of days is deafening, and it signals that the leverage is back in the Pistons’ court.

Pistons are Jalen Duren’s best option

Detroit may not have offered Duren the supermax extension he was searching for, but several reports have suggested the Pistons did offer a deal they felt was enough for the former first-round pick to return to the Motor City.

With the Lakers now out of the picture, the Celtics’ future in serious question, and no other team with cap space available to make a run, the Pistons are Duren’s best option to not only get paid but also contend.

Duren has a great relationship with superstar guard Cade Cunningham, and while it’s clear that his priorities were landing a bag this summer, there’s no reason why he can’t get the best of both worlds by receiving a notable raise and returning to the place he’s called home since 2022.

The Pistons lost Tobias Harris in free agency, they moved on from Isaiah Stewart, and the futures of Caris LeVert and Duncan Robinson are still very much in question.

Detroit can’t let another key piece of their top-seeded roster exit this offseason, even if there’s a massive gripe about how Duren played during the playoffs.

Fresh off an All-Star season that landed him an All-NBA nod, the Pistons want to retain him, and with his options disappearing fast, Duren should be more open to a return now.

A hospital bed. That was the only thing that could stop Dominique Paul Noth from doing a review.

An ice storm tried a couple of years ago, coming to Milwaukee the same night as a dance recital. It failed. When he could no longer drive and gave up his license, one of his children would take him, or he’d Uber to a performance. That was his level of dedication.

Then, one month before his passing, Noth, stuck in a hospital bed and hooked up to an oxygen tank, acquiesced, calling his editor to inform him he would not be able to review Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.” For the first time in his 60 years as an arts critic in Milwaukee, the show would go on without him.

“He was not happy about it,” his son Vincent said.

“It’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do before,” added Paul, the third oldest Noth’s nine children.

Noth, who influenced Milwaukee’s discussion of culture and the arts for close to six decades, died on June 26 at 84 years old. He had advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease complicated by heart failure.

Conceived while his parents were escaping the Nazis in France, Noth was born in New York in 1942. He moved to Milwaukee as a teenager and went to Marquette University, where he fell in love with the arts.

Noth graduated in 1963, and worked in New York for three years before being hired by the Milwaukee Journal, where he worked in a variety of positions for three decades. Starting as a copy editor, he soon made a switch to news writing before becoming a film and drama critic.

He kept rising, becoming an arts and senior features editor, working on the publication’s beloved Green Sheet in the 1970’s. Noth stayed at the newspaper long enough to serve as the first online news producer for the merged Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In the 1970’s and 80’s, he also taught a film course at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. After leaving the Journal Sentinel, he served as editor-in-chief of The Milwaukee Labor Press for a decade before becoming a contributing theater and culture critic for Urban Milwaukee.

Noth’s writing earned numerous honors, including nine gold medals from The Milwaukee Press Club for Best Critic. Never afraid to ruffle feathers with searing reviews, Noth said “the force fizzled” in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.” He even briefly got himself banned from reviewing a Skylight Theater show in 1974 because of past rhetoric.

“He approached Milwaukee as if it was New York, L.A., Chicago,” said Jeannie Gaffigan, Noth’s oldest daughter. “He really always believed in Milwaukee, and always believed in the arts in Milwaukee.”

His access to subjects often set him apart. Once, when Cary Grant was getting into a taxi to go to the airport, Noth followed the actor into the cab to secure an exclusive interview. He also got a one-on-one with Steven Spielberg by talking his way past security after the filmmaker spurned other media.

Noth juggled working tirelessly with raising a family, and often involved them in his jobs. He would take his children to exclusive, private screenings and even more exclusive interviews. His kids attended his UWM classes, and sat in the Milwaukee Journal offices while he typed his reviews.

He also loved to cook and bake, making everything from scratch.

“I have no idea how he did as much as he did,” son Paul said. “He was able to accomplish a lot.”

This month’s column comes to you from the People’s Pride event at Powderhorn Park, where the temperature wasn’t the only thing that was hot. I spoke with five Pridegoers about personal style evolution, where they find inspiration, and what the Twin Cities is doing right about fashion. 

Ana Evenson

How would you describe your personal style?

Thrifty and funky.

Where do you find style inspiration?

Pinterest, TikTok, friends, random people.

Where do you like to shop?

The Goodwill bins, Depop—I’m on Depop a lot—and garage sales.

What are the Twin Cities doing right in the style scene?

The creativity and people who think outside of the box. I will see stuff I haven’t seen on social media anywhere, so I think it’s really cool that people come up with their own stuff.

Has your style changed over the years? How?

Yes! I used to live in rural Wisconsin, where I was one of the only queer women there. I think that [lately] I have been more open about expressing my sexuality and gender and experimenting not only dressing hyper-feminine but masculine in some ways, too. I think that’s how it’s changed. 

What’s your go-to outfit when you feel like you have nothing to wear?

I think my comfort outfits are the ones I share with my partner. We have collective baggy sweaters that we both use, so I think those. 

How do you dress up an outfit?

I love pins, so popping some pins on. I’ve been really into ties so I’ll wear a tie over a T-shirt. Also accessories, like rings, necklaces, putting things in my hair and stuff like that. 

Tell me about your outfit today.

My partner and I have a collection of bandanas. We have pretty much every color in the rainbow, so I like to color coordinate a lot for monochrome moments. The shirt is from Etsy. The [shorts] are from Depop. I just got them because they’re kind of in style and thought they were cute. Rings are mostly thrifted, like this amethyst one which is my birthstone. I got one from a local queer market too. Glasses are from EyeBuyDirect; they have a lot of really great frames there. Socks are from my parents. And the shoes are also from Depop, I think. They have little butterflies on them which I thought was really cute. 

What style trends do you really like or dislike right now?

I feel like I will hate certain things but then I will see certain people wearing them and go, ‘Never mind, it’s just me that can’t work it.’ 

What advice do you have for dressing without fear?

I had anxiety picking my outfit out today. But you go to the place and there’s someone else that’s going to be dressing as cool as you or cooler than you. So it’s like, no one is going to remember what you wore the next day unless you want them to. I would just say to go for that. There have been outfits I’ve worn in the past that I would probably never wear today, but I’m glad I tried it because it made me more comfortable to wear something else in the future. 

Gillian Mueller, James E-T, Aya Lee

How would you describe your personal style?

E-T: Recently it’s been fruity cowboy. 

Lee: A somewhat hardcore eclectic but fun springtime girl. 

Mueller: I would say kind of a softer eclectic, movement based. 

Where do you find style inspiration? 

Lee: Pinterest is always your friend. I think a lot of the time just going shopping and looking at everything helps. I shop a lot and I try on a lot of things, all the time. I love finding and figuring out outfits for specific events. That helps me curate a theme in my mind and figure out what is going to be the most dynamic for the environment, like what’s worth moving in but also what’s exciting and fun. 

E-T: I love my phone; I’m on her all the time. Instagram and me are really tight and I see a lot of workwear, vintage clothes. If I have the energy I’ll go through a Goodwill and dig through it all. I like Japanese designers and designs, too, like Issey Miyake. 

Mueller: I’m shopping constantly, but I think for me a lot of it is just internal. I like to just see how it would look on me. But I’m also always looking at every outfit around me like, ‘Oh, I haven’t thought about putting that together!’ 

What are the Twin Cities doing right in the style scene?

Lee: I think queer people like to have fun with their fashion here. I have loved finding ways to be naked and not be naked at the same time. In Minneapolis, where we are actively making the most of the summertime, a lot of our events have this heavy emphasis on showing out with a visual aspect of our outfits. And it’s hot as fuck, which we don’t experience a lot. So I think it’s fun to experiment with what it means to wear clothes that are interesting but also not wearing clothes at all. 

Mueller: I love that there’s every single possible kind of person here so there’s so much going on all of the time. You can see every brand of outfit. 

E-T: I feel like there’s so many different subcultures that thrive here that it’s hard to have a generalized through line between those and speak to Minneapolis’s style in a broader sense. But maybe one thing is there’s a lack of pretentiousness that lives here that is exciting. I would love to see more people wearing niche Japanese designers that I like. I love the punk scene here. In the Powderhorn area specifically, there’s a lot of people leaning into simplicity but also things that are worn, lived in, and have history to them. 

Tell me about your outfit today.

E-T: Fruity cowboy is the vibe. A friend of mine works in a vintage shop and they have a lot of vintage polos and they cropped this one. I was really excited when I saw it and spent a little more than I would have liked on it. Then some Levi’s and boots. 

Lee: Today I’m wearing my NikeSKIMS Rifts [shoes], some shorts I bought for a music festival last year–they’re very tiny–and this flowy piece that I’m pretty sure is a swimsuit coverup with a bikini top under it that I got from Turnstyle. I wanted to go for something that has some sort of edge to it but I’m also venturing out with colors for the summer. I usually wear black. I don’t usually do pink so I’m getting into making colors feel a little more edgy for me. When I wear things that aren’t dark, I feel out of place or not intimidating enough. So I substituted the dark colors for attaching chains to my top and having these drop down [lace straps] from my shorts and dark shoes. And the bag with some heavy hardware. I’m just trying to harden [the outfit] up a bit while still looking sweet. 

Mueller: I feel like I’m on an opposite journey right now from a lot of color to adding more basics. I haven’t owned a pair of jean shorts in probably over five years, so we’re making a huge debut today. I will say it is too much fabric touching my skin, but I’m brave and I’m strong. I like basics, they’re fun. I’m not wearing all of my rings today but I think when the outfit is toned down it makes the jewelry pop more which is really fun.  

Connor Myrick

How would you describe your personal style?

If I’m trying to choose an outfit or giving someone advice, I’ll be like, “What feels more playful or fun?” Sometimes I’ll go for a classic look for an event. I like a vest; I think they’re funky. 

Where do you find style inspiration?

Pinterest is always a great one. People-watching at an event like this is a perfect [way to find inspiration]. You see art or you see something cool and it’s like, “I’m going to steal that.” I’ll tell all my friends that I saw someone else wearing that at a festival, but now this is my idea because I made my own piece. 

Where do you like to shop?

I don’t shop as much anymore but clothing swaps, thrift sales, and community events are great. I generally have enough clothes that I can do something else with [a piece of clothing] so I have definitely reduced how much I shop. 

What’s your go-to outfit when you feel like you have nothing to wear?

In the winter I’ll do a crewneck and a good pair of jeans. Having two pairs of jeans that you can rotate through never hurts. In summer it’s tank tops. Summer is hot, so it’s sun’s out guns out. I think in the winter it’s so focused on layering and nailing that so, in summer, it’s nice to counterbalance that and wear what I couldn’t wear in winter. 

What are the Twin Cities doing right in the style scene?

Honestly, I think it’s pretty good. I see a lot of people with clothes that they have made their own, either ripping or embellishing in some ways. I think that is the most, or best, glimpse of someone’s personal style that we could ever see. 

Tell me about your outfit today.

The Chaco [sandals] I got when I was a guide so I got them for free. These have been with me for a while; they’re great outdoors shoes. My shorts are from South Carolina years and years ago but they’ve traveled with me everywhere. They’re my go-to and my semi-cargo short. The vest is actually thrifted at a vintage shop in London on Notting Hill. It was in the back of this tall closet. I didn’t need new clothes, but when in Europe! 

What advice do you have for someone who wants to dress true to their style but is hesitant?

Wear it around the house when you’re alone. That’s how I started wearing crop tops and tank tops in general. They started as my workout clothes, then my around the house clothes, which helped because I try to dress very comfortably.